I'm not sure where to download version 2.6 -- try searching the forum, as I think there was a post on that, but I'm not sure if it was this new forum or the old one.

As to the license info, Poco might be able to read the license data from the previous (problem) installation. If so, problem solved. If not, then Poco will start fine in evaluation mode. You should be able to find your license information in the email you received from Poco Systems.

If license info is missing from your system, run in eval mode and contact Poco Support.

As another option, download the current 3.1 version, and import your old mail into the new version of the program.

You probably should check your file system to make sure the Poco files (in the failing directory) are not corrupt. Use scandisk or whatever utility you have to verify the integrity of the files.

Then, assuming you still have the original (problem) installation, delete the new installation.

Reinstall Poco, and this time do not import anything. Try to get a minimally working version of the program running. As soon as that happens (e.g., you can send and receive mail, even though you don't have any of your history), save the working configuration.

Then, go to the import menu, and import as little as possible. For example, if you only need mailboxes, just import mail.

If that fails, that is, if you import just your mail and still get the error, then it's probably a bad file in your old directory. Delete the new directory (again) and copy the backup of your working configuration so that it becomes the new working directory. Test to make sure it still works.

Now, working with the old (problem) Poco directory, and assuming you have backed up that directory somewhere, delete the following files in the old (problem) Poco directory:
*.~*
*.idx

The files with the tilde in the names are backup files. The .idx files are index files that Poco will recreate automatically if they are missing.

Try the import process again. If that still fails, I have one more idea.

I think you should select the mbx files -- I'm working without access to a v2.6 installation here. If you can select an mbx file, import one at a time, most important mailboxes first.

As another alternative, you might try copying the mbx files (a few at a time) from the old (problem) directory into the new mail directory. The idea is to do this copying/importing incrementally to try to isolate the mailbox (or other component) that's causing Poco to fail at startup.